Spike or Sparky?

[CastletonSnob 3,074]

Which MLP baby dragon do you like better?

[Venomous 18,862]

I much prefer Spike.

Sparky is just an annoying, babbling baby.
It’s Flurry Heart all over again.

Edited October 12, 2022 by The Wife of Tengen

[CastletonSnob 3,074]

5 minutes ago, The Wife of Tengen said:

I much prefer Spike.

Sparky is just an annoying, babbling baby.
It’s Flurry Heart all over again.

After 8 episodes of Sparky, I never want to hear anyone complain about Spike again.

Edited October 12, 2022 by CastletonSnob

[J.J 921]

Twilight may "refer" to Spike as a "baby dragon" but it's obvious at least a few years had passed since his birth seeing as Twilight hatched him as a filly via "the Rainboom". Which in looking at things this way may be an indication of how they are going to scale time throughout the story of Gen.5. I think watching Sparky mature and potentially have a voice actor would be interesting, but I don't believe that is going to happen, I believe even if Gen 5 runs a 5-7 year course they will stay close to the same as ponies and there won't be any leaps in the plot to suggest skipping of time or just outright time progression... Sparky got a bad wrap from the writers, he's basically just a magical tool(plot device) that they hope young kids will find cute, but he doesn't bring anything to the story himself but his magic I see being leaned on many times in the future as a plot device, obviously seeing as the main plot has Opaline wanting to kidnap him for power... Spike had the advantage of actually being a supporting personality, and that's bc he wasn't a literal infant...

[Misty Shadow 7,813]

Well, after seeing Spike develop over nine seasons and eight episodes of a baby dragon doing baby things, I suppose I prefer Spike. Honestly, however, I don't find Sparky annoying. I didn't care for Flurry Heart but that's mostly because she had no real impact on the show. Sparky is definitely going to have a real impact on the show. 

[Megas 27,550]

Spike without question, even with the rough writing he was given, he's just an all around more pleasant character

Sparky has been my least favorite part of G5 so far. He feels like a response to the criticism of hyping McFlurry and then making her completely irrelevant without explanation, but while McFlurry never really overstayed her welcome while showing a higher than normal amount of awareness for a baby, Sparky has more or less been a glorified macguffin, given overpowered abilities that almost feel like they exist to create conflict while creating a power the main villain wants which will make him more important than he actually needs to be. Which is a shame because I honestly love Daddy Hitch

Edited October 12, 2022 by Megas

[J.J 921]

6 minutes ago, Megas said:

Spike without question, even with the rough writing he was given, he's just an all around more pleasant character

Sparky has been my least favorite part of G5 so far. He feels like a response to the criticism of hyping McFlurry and then making her completely irrelevant without explanation, but while McFlurry never really overstayed her welcome while showing a higher than normal amount of awareness for a baby, Sparky has more or less been a glorified macguffin, given overpowered abilities that almost feel like they exist to create conflict while creating a power the main villain wants which will make him more important than he actually needs to be

I'm not sure that the intention ever was to "hype" Flurryheart rather again use her as a plot device, I mean Jesus, "the Chrystaling" was awful, and I gush over Starlight, but yeah I feel like they saw potential episode plot filler and creating a baby character, but I agree I would have at least liked to see her aged in "the ending of the end" in some kind of relevant position of importance...(maybe that could have light weight justified making her to begin with.) But yeah I just saw, easy plotline/plotline fodder in creating Flurryheart rather than hyping us to believe she would do anything special...

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

I can't realistically compare them. Now, if we're talking about season 1 Spike (keeping in mind his childish tendencies and annoying moments) then we can make a better case. That said, I would still prefer Spike but...keep in mind, Spike in season 1 was rough. Sparky is a baby and...well, I don't care for babies, but he is what he is. I actually liked him in episode 8, but still, he needs time to grow and I hope he received similar growth that Spike had in G4.

[Misty Shadow 7,813]

4 hours ago, Ashen Pathfinder said:

I can't realistically compare them. Now, if we're talking about season 1 Spike (keeping in mind his childish tendencies and annoying moments) then we can make a better case. That said, I would still prefer Spike but...keep in mind, Spike in season 1 was rough. Sparky is a baby and...well, I don't care for babies, but he is what he is. I actually liked him in episode 8, but still, he needs time to grow and I hope he received similar growth that Spike had in G4.

Yup, that's the problem with so many "G4 thing vs. G5 thing" topics like this, as I'm sure I've had to point out before. Pitting a thing that has had so much time to grow against something that's hardly had any time to grow will never give people the ability to make a fair comparison. I didn't really like Spike in Season 1 either, he took a long time to grow on me. 

[Splashee 28,560]

Now, if Twilight Sparkle is "alive", or whatever she is (she is 3D at least?), then Spike will probably not be far away. Spike for the win.

[Rosy Moonlight 369]

I prefer Spike over Sparky. I wouldn't have minded having an actual dragon in G5 if there was a school-age baby dragon to balance things out.

I imagined an episode where Sparky suddenly ages up to school-age and ends up wanting to stay that way, and the Mane 5 end up heartbroken over that. What happens at the ending?

[Skylight Scintillate 1,973]

I get the feeling that Sparky is simply going to be used a plot tool for whenever they need some kind of powerful magic to happen. Maybe they could do something interesting with Opaline trying to obtain Sparky's dragon fire magic, but other than that, I don't see anything that would make Sparky a likable character. Spike, on the other hand, while he was on the receiving end for a lot of slapstick comedy in the first few seasons, became significantly better in the later seasons.

[ProjectRKA 2,848]

I think the biggest difference between Spike and Sparky is that Sparky is a newborn dragon. Spike on the other hand was a bit older and lived together with Twilight who knew everything about everything. But to answer the question, I like both of them. 

[Steve Piranha 29,414]

Spike, no discussion. I don’t mind Sparky, but Spike is clearly much more of a character 

[Sir Hugsalot 9,182]

Tbh I much prefer Spike, because he can actually be a relatable character to young audience. 

He's a young teenager going through that period of life when one wants to do good, but is confused with the world around them. Suddenly nothing is simple anymore, we see hardships and struggles we were blind to before. We say things that sometimes are dumb or... a little too blunt despite our honesty and despite best intentions we may even hurt someone. We struggle to fully handle our emotions as due to us developing these are running rampart in all sorts of ways. 

Spike also represents that more "geeky" part of us that mane 6 doesn't as even Rainbow Dash, for example isn't much into superhero stuff, while Spike definitely is. He has many traits mane 6 doesn't have (because these simply wouldn't fit them). He has actual personality, learns his lessons and we can see him growing throughout the show.

 

Sparky... I haven't seen entire gen 5 yet, but he feels like a character made for the sake of being "adorable" or, I don't know, memes? I am not a big fan of him unfortunately. I can't even say much about him, while, as You can see, there's much to be said about Spike and that's despite me trying to make it short.

 

So, in short - Spike wins. 

 

EDIT: "weans"? What was wrong with me Flawless spelling!

Edited October 28, 2022 by Sir Spooksalot
Epic spelling xD

[Cirrus. 1,089]

Seriously?

From what I've seen Sparky reminds me of Flurry Heart. Overall not much of a character.

Spike for sure.

[AlbaTross 1,586]

As pretty much everyone else has said, I much prefer Spike, because he's an actual character.  I think Sparky vs Flurry Heart would be a much more fair comparison, but at the end of the day, I'm not a big fan of baby characters.  Heck, while FiM at least had the sense to make Flurry a minor side character, Sparky is like what if Flurry ended up living permanently with her aunt and ruined the majority of episodes Twilight was in, and yes, the presence of Sparky is certainly bringing Hitch down a few notches as a character for me.  I could deal with such a character being around for the odd episode once in a while, but the archetype simply doesn't lend itself well to being a series mainstay of any kind. 

Moreover, I can't think of a single series where introducing such a character improved ratings, but if anyone can come up with an example you're welcome to let me know.  What's worse is, we're not actually all that far into the series, and usually baby characters are introduced much later on in a series much later to try and introduce a new element to a series that's already peaked and has since started to descend downwards, so I can't help but see Sparky's introduction as a bad sign.  I get that he was introduced because Spike, but I think there are much better ways that this series could have added a tribute to FiM.

On 2022-10-12 at 11:11 PM, CloudMistDragon said:

Yup, that's the problem with so many "G4 thing vs. G5 thing" topics like this, as I'm sure I've had to point out before. Pitting a thing that has had so much time to grow against something that's hardly had any time to grow will never give people the ability to make a fair comparison. I didn't really like Spike in Season 1 either, he took a long time to grow on me. 

I think such an objection is fair, to an extent, as it is very much true that we have 9 seasons (or 8 and 1/2 if you want to get technical) of FiM, while we only have so much of G5, and FiM certainly benefitted from character development, and just having people such as the writers and Ingram refine their craft over time.  Conversely, G5 has only just started.  Also, while people often criticize nostalgia for being blind, I have certainly noticed its polar opposite in recent years that appears to be equally blind, which is a bias in favour of what's new and current, even if it's in progress, and for that reason, I prefer to wait until a work is completed to give it a proper analysis.  

I think some degree of comparison is fair though, as not only was it inevitable that a new MLP would be compared to what came before, but this series is literally force-tied to the previous one, with the film even hitting us over the head with references.  Of course comparisons were going to happen.  Additionally, it's not unreasonable to expect that a new series would benefit from what was learned with FiM, as even though a new studio is handling G5, Hasbro should have at least observed some of what went well with FiM, and what didn't.  

The real problem I think people have with G5 (I certainly do) is that while FiM most certainly jumped the shark multiple times over the course of its run, it seems that G5 jumped the shark pretty much immediately, and has only done so further as it has progressed even as far as it is now.  Force-tying what should have been a completely unrelated series certainly didn't help, as it created a foundation that feels unnecessarily fanficy, and it really didn't need to be that way.  To make matters worse, I for one think the series peaked with A New Generation, and has descended even further from what I personally think was a pretty low hill to begin with.  Very little time and effort has been put into developing the characters since, and there's a poor balance IMHO of overarching plot vs episodic plots, which seems like an effort to cash in on an aspect of what made FiM popular, without a proper understanding of why. 

TBH, Sparky is only one in multiple ways in which this series has jumped the shark, and while FiM certainly wasn't at its strongest in season 1, I still think it set a better foundation than what we're seeing so far with G5, and while I'll be happy to be proven wrong, there are certainly signs that G5 will never hold a candle to FiM.  So, sure, I'll give it a shot for now, as it is certainly fair to do so, and sure, I'll reserve my final judgement until the series has concluded, but there is still room to analyze the foundation that has been set so far.  

[Splashee 28,560]

I call it now. Sparky will forever stay an infant baby dragon.

Spike at least grew up, was abused quite a lot by the Mane 6 that no one would treat a baby in the first place, so this is more than just a question of who is better.

[Tacodidra 61,026]

Based on what I've seen so far, definitely Spike! Sparky's appearances (though I admittedly haven't seen all of them yet) range from cute to obnoxious, Spike was always a more interesting character. I don't even think Sparky is the best baby in MLP (that would be Flurry Heart).

[nightshroud96 124]

On 2022-10-12 at 6:36 PM, CloudMistDragon said:

Well, after seeing Spike develop over nine seasons and eight episodes of a baby dragon doing baby things, I suppose I prefer Spike. Honestly, however, I don't find Sparky annoying. I didn't care for Flurry Heart but that's mostly because she had no real impact on the show. Sparky is definitely going to have a real impact on the show. 

But not as ACTUAL character but a plot device and "goo goo ga ga"
They did Sparky(and by proxy from this, Spike) dirty

[Sparklefan1234 169,330]

I prefer Spike over Sparky and I feel like Spike wasn't an actual "baby" I think Twilight just called him that because he was so young. 

[Twitchy-Tremor 297]

G4 spike. He was cute in other gens but g4 ones my favorite. I didn’t really care for sparky at all until recently with him getting kidnapped.

[Evil Pink One 13,505]

Spike.................

[the_one78 33]

On 2022-10-12 at 11:35 PM, J.J said:

Twilight may "refer" to Spike as a "baby dragon" but it's obvious at least a few years had passed since his birth seeing as Twilight hatched him as a filly via "the Rainboom". Which in looking at things this way may be an indication of how they are going to scale time throughout the story of Gen.5. I think watching Sparky mature and potentially have a voice actor would be interesting, but I don't believe that is going to happen, I believe even if Gen 5 runs a 5-7 year course they will stay close to the same as ponies and there won't be any leaps in the plot to suggest skipping of time or just outright time progression... Sparky got a bad wrap from the writers, he's basically just a magical tool(plot device) that they hope young kids will find cute, but he doesn't bring anything to the story himself but his magic I see being leaned on many times in the future as a plot device, obviously seeing as the main plot has Opaline wanting to kidnap him for power... Spike had the advantage of actually being a supporting personality, and that's bc he wasn't a literal infant...

Since you are pointing out the fact that Spike is considered to be a baby dragon even after years of life, could it mean that dragon age at a different rate ? Could it mean that Spike could still be alive in G5 ?

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

Definitely Spike, no offense to Sparky, but in terms of character development he's just not as interesting. He's cute don't get me wrong, but Spike in terms of character development and personality is just more interesting. I always enjoyed the Spike centered episodes and love his relationship with Twilight and the rest of the mane six.